Rick, thanks for the kind offer! We'll have to see how things go. At this point, I just don't know in how much of a hurry I will be in to get out to PA and back. How much time I have will determine the route I ultimately take.

I do hope you and your son decide to try and make it to Abe's event. The "training sessions" will be special, no doubt. Tom has been preparing for almost a year. I'm pleased that someone has taken the time to read our "promotional materials". LOL.

Jim

Take your truck on some long runs this summer and see how it does. Each time drive it a little longer.

Does your Dad still live in Coudersport? It sounds like you're serious about attending if you researched how much it will cost to transport the truck.....

When I bought my panel just outside of Hershey some time back I figured it would cost around that to rent a trailer one way from PA back to WI. I bought a trailer for $2700 and got my money out of it. Just a thought.

No they live in Wharton..which is about 70 miles northwest of you. Yea I have been looking into it...but the chances of doing it this year are really slim. But I am driving the truck further and further all the time.

That not far from Renovo.

Delete this

Hi Pete. I am talking about the SS Badger. The rate schedule posted on line is deceiving. You have to pay for your vehicle PLUS a passenger fare. The driver is considered a "passenger". The numbers in my most recent post are directly from an agent working in ferry ticket office. Also, there are no "off season" rates. Sailing times change for the spring and fall, but not the rates.

A while back I posted some rates for the ferry out of Milwaukee. They were higher than the Badger rates, but what I posted is most likely wrong too. Silly me for thinking the driver of a vehicle wouldn't have to pay a passenger fare.

Jim

Wow Jim. Sorry. That is not easily understood. :-X15

Jim, I don't remember where you live "up north". For use to take the bridge would be way out of our way. I only have a limited amount of time to travel. My wife only has a week of vacation to use.

The bridge would be out of my way too, but even so, I could still get farther on the first day then I could using the ferry. To catch the 2:00 pm ferry, I would have to be in Manitowoc by at least 1:00 pm. Arrival in Luddington is 7:00 pm, and in mid September, there won't be very much daylight left. On the other hand, leaving at first light and heading north, I could reach the Mackinaw Bridge by noon and still have about seven hours of driving time left--enough to get close to northwestern Ohio or London Ontario.

I'm not sure what my schedule is going to be like yet. I think it depends if someone ends up coming with me. My son is starting to talk as though he might be interested, in which case we'd have to travel in the most efficient way possible. That would probably mean going around (or somehow through) Chicago.

Lots of options are still possible.

Jim

PS

I live about 15 miles north of Antigo--on the way to Eagle River.

Jim, the ferry from Milwaukee to Muskegon would cost over $500 round trip for the two of us and the truck and add about 30 minutes to the drive but knock off about 30 miles according to Google maps. I used the avoid tolls and highways options to try to get an idea of what using county highways instead of the interstate system. From what I can tell on the map I can avoid the worst part of Chicago and stay south of Gary.

Gary is like a war zone. Its best to avoid it. Empty buildings, empty lots, trash strewn all over the place. It has wide broad 4 lane main streets that very few cars were using in the middle of the day. What a shame.

How do I know? We were on our way to a Chicago Cubs game. My wife and her sister are Michael Jackson fans. So we went to Gary to see the 2 bedroom house that Michael and his 8 siblings grew up in.

I've been through the Chicago/Gary armpit of the country quite a few times. Most times I've stayed on the interstate and did fine. Chicago has one rush hour I try to avoid. It starts about 4 am and ends about 12 midnight, or a little after. I've had to make deliveries in the city of Chicago and it rarely turns out good. I cannot even consider driving a 70 year old truck that can be outrun by almost any able bodied person on the expressway through that area. I've been in the city of Gary twice on surface streets. Once in the middle of the night in a snow storm. Interesting how the snow in the middle of the night didn't deter people from just walking in the middle of the streets. The second time we were going to PA to pick up the panel truck and the family wanted to stop for lunch. Pulled off the freeway when we saw a MacD sign. "Interesting" is all I will say. On the way back, the the panel securely fastened to the car trailer we got into Chicago during the height of their rush hour, the freeway was a parking lot. The radio traffic reports there is absolutely no help. They tell what parts of the freeway system is jammed (pretty much every mile) but they only use the local names, not the actual highway numbers so there's no figuring out a better route using a map. My wife, the great navigator she is looks at the map (before GPS) and says there's a major highway on the map that runs parallel to the major freeway and we should take that. I get off the expressway and end up in a neighborhood of deserted and boarded up buildings, building that were still being used had steel bars on the windows and doors and junk cars lined both sides of the street. I am pulling a new to me trailer that is barely making it through the narrow streets. I told my wife I'm getting back on the expressway ASAP even if we end up spending the night there.

On way to KY in '12 I tried my best to avoid Chicago. We started out on a somewhat rural highway to the west of the city but ran into a detour that sent us to the south side of Chicago. It was getting dark and I told the wife that I won't stop at any light if I feel uncomfortable. When I did stop I left enough room in front of me to make an escape. Again, in a 70 year old truck. We obviously got out OK.

I'm still debating whether to take the ferry or go way around to the south Chicago and Gary.

When we lived in Detroit, we took the Skyway through Chicago all the time. We've done it recently too, but in a modern vehicle. I remember once, back in the day, having a flat tire in Gary. It was a little scary, but we survived. It would require a set of extreme circumstances, however, to contemplate taking the F1 through Chicago now.

Back in post 30 of this thread, I described my route around Chicago on the way to Kentucky. The route takes you on secondary roads through the edges of the western suburbs and gets you safely south of Chicago. There were stop lights and congestion, but the traffic kept moving. I would take this route again. I went as far south as Terra Haute before heading east. Going to Pennsylvania, you wouldn't have to go that far south. I probably won't know which way I'll be going until just before leaving. At this point, I'm thinking I want to arrive at Bald Eagle State Park Thursday late afternoon, but that could change too.

Hopefully some of our members are starting to dig through their map collections and dream about making an epic road trip with their old truck.

Jim

I just saw this posted on Facebook. It is about a peculiar ice cream flavor loved in PA called Teaberry.
https://www.mcall.com/entertainment/...QKy1EVKia3Mq6Q

Why is this brought up on the Central PA Mountain Truckstock thread? Dennis (Pinto Plumber) at the KY 2017 TS said he would bring it to the PA TS. Our southern FTE brethren never heard of it. The 2018 Central PA Mountain Truckstock was flooded out so hopefully Dennis will bring some to TS this year!